There are significant concerns from the fund management community in particular, that the original EU ambition for the scope and coverage of PRIPS has been diluted by banking and insurance lobbies. The commentary looks at the current status of the consultation and recognises that PRIPS still has major obstacles ahead regarding its ability to provide the necessary tools and information to allow consumers to compare a broad range of notionally substitutable investments products.

There is a warning that regulators, including ESMA, recognise the intrinsic problems of product comparison and may invoke more upstream policies to impact product design stage rather than restrict the regulatory focus to the sales and distribution part of the value chain.